In an existing network infrastructure, if a station (station, STA) that requests a service needs to communicate with other service devices, the station needs to separately perform authentication and association with each service device, even if the service devices to which the station needs to simultaneously connect or between which the station needs to switch a connection belong to a same network or have a same authentication manner. An authentication process is a process of determining whether a station STA that requests a connection is qualified to connect. An association process is a process of exchanging information with each other and establishing a connection. As shown in FIG. 1, a network includes a station STA 101, a first printer 102, a second printer 103, and a notebook computer 104. If the STA 101 needs to communicate with the first printer 102, the second printer 103, and the notebook computer 104, the STA 101 needs to separately perform authentication and association with each of the service devices, that is, the first printer 102, the second printer 103, and the notebook computer 104. If the STA 101 needs to switch from a connection to the first printer 102 to a connection to the second printer 103, the STA also needs to perform authentication and association with the second printer 103 again. In addition, if the service devices, that is, the first printer 102, the second printer 103, and the notebook computer 104, need to communicate with each other, each of the service devices needs to perform authentication and association. For example, if the second printer 103 needs to perform authentication and association with the first printer 102 and the notebook computer 104, the second printer 103 needs to separately perform authentication and association with the first printer 102 and the notebook computer 104. Therefore, when a STA needs to switch a service, or requires multiple services at the same time, the STA needs to perform authentication with multiple service devices, which is rather cumbersome to a user.